Small change, big changes

Santee

John McKnight and his wife, Gloria Duncan, lost their 7-year-old granddaughter, D'Asia Williams, in a devastating fire last June. Operation Round Up stepped in to help with their basic needs in the days after the fire. "It was like you're drowning, and someone sends you that lifeline," McKnight says.

Fairfield

Broad River

More than 50 Broad River Electric Cooperative volunteers stuffed 3,000 book bags with school supplies and delivered them to elementary schools in August. Operation Round Up funds bought the bags, and community partners donated pencils, notebooks, paper and other needed items.

Beyond our borders

Tom Upshaw’s powerful idea quickly spread nationwide. Oklahoma Electric Cooperative in Norman was one of the first cooperatives outside of South Carolina to adopt Operation Round Up. Among its community projects: providing AmTryke therapeutic tricycles for children with physical disabilities and distributing relief funds after a series of deadly tornadoes. After widespread disasters or during the holiday season, many co-op members are inspired to give extra funds to Operation Round Up, says Patti Rogers, communications specialist at Oklahoma Electric. Some are those who have been on the receiving end of help in the past. “They say, ‘You helped me through this hard time—now I want to give back,” Rogers says.

Fire tore through John McKnight’s Williamsburg County home last summer, destroying everything in its path.

His granddaughter died in the fire; his wife was severely burned, and other family members were injured. Anguished and homeless, the family was in desperate need of help.

“We went from everything to nothing in a matter of minutes,” says McKnight, a member of Santee Electric Cooperative. “We were still so traumatized, and then it’s like someone came and put a hand on our backs and said, ‘We’re going to help you and get you back on your feet.’”

That someone was Santee Electric Trust, which oversees the Santee co-op’s Operation Round Up program. Funds from this community outreach effort provided the family five nights at a local hotel, plus a $500 Walmart gift card to buy immediate necessities like clothes, shoes and toothbrushes, and a $250 Visa card to help McKnight and his wife travel to Florida for their granddaughter’s funeral.

“The way they came in and helped me and my wife was just remarkable,” says McKnight, who had never heard of Operation Round Up until it came to his rescue. “It took a lot of stress off of us, just to have those basics—a pair of shoes, some clothes on your back, at least a place to lay your head. It was such a relief.”

Neighbors helping neighbors

A fast-food lunch. A bottle of shampoo. A matinee movie ticket.

You might spend $6 on any of these and not think much of it. But pool your $6 with similar dollars from your fellow cooperative members, and you can change lives.

That’s the simple idea behind Operation Round Up, which for 25 years has been caring for people in the communities cooperatives serve. Here’s how it works:

With permission from their members, co-ops with an Operation Round Up program automatically round up a participating member’s electric bill each month to the next highest dollar. For example, a consumer’s monthly bill of $52.73 would be automatically rounded up to $53, with the extra 27 cents going into the local co-op’s Operation Round Up fund.

On average, that’s about $6 a year for a participating member’s account—or about 50 cents a month.

In 1989, Palmetto Electric Cooperative created Operation Round Up as a way for co-op members to help people in need in Beaufort, Hampton and Jasper counties. Recognizing a great idea, co-ops across the state and nation were soon adopting the program in their own communities.

Celebrating its silver anniversary this month, Operation Round Up is now in 16 of this state’s electric co-ops, having distributed more than $33 million in aid for community projects and people in need across South Carolina. Multiply that across the 300‑plus co-ops in 39 other states that have adopted the program to measure the even-bigger impact—Operation Round Up has delivered untold millions in charitable aid to communities nationwide.

“Co-ops were organized to bring power to the rural areas of our state, but the broader aspect of that is to improve the lives of the people we serve,” says Leigh Smith, communications coordinator for Lynches River Electric Cooperative. The seventh cooperative principle, she points out, is “concern for community.”

“You couldn’t find a better program to do that than this one,” she says.

Upshaw’s simple idea

It all started with “one of those four o’clock-in-the-morning-when-you-can’t-sleep ideas,” Tom Upshaw says.

The year was 1989, and Upshaw—who retired last June after 30 years as president and CEO of Palmetto Electric Cooperative—was mulling ways his co-op could be more deeply involved with the community. He pitched his Operation Round Up concept to the co-op’s board of trustees, and they enthusiastically embraced it. They established the Palmetto Electric Trust to oversee monthly applications for assistanceand disbursement of funds.

“We had no idea it would spread like it has,” Upshaw says, adding that he’s fielded inquiries about the program from as far away as Canada, England and Australia. “I’m absolutely amazed.”

A key focus of the program, he says, is to “help people out of rough spots ... to help them out of that emergency or hole that they’re in at that particular point in time.” At the height of the recent recession, Palmetto’s Operation Round Up often had more requests than it could handle.

“People call and say, ‘I’ve never had to ask anyone for help before,’” says Jackie Cooper, who works with Berkeley Electric Cooperative’s Operation Round Up program.

“I tell them we all go through tough times when we have an emergency or a need we can’t fulfill ourselves,” she says. “That’s what this program’s here for.”

Operation Round Up also impacts the local community by funding projects that need a specific boost. Palmetto’s fund, which has disbursed more than $6 million since it started, helped install a helicopter pad at Hampton Regional Medical Center for medical transports, and it bought the first delivery truck for a local program called Second Helpings that distributes surplus food to agencies serving the disadvantaged.

“It’s a simple idea where nobody is hurt,” Upshaw says. “We’re talking on average about $6 a year. But collectively, those dollars mount up and make a difference.”

Members making an impact

When emergencies hit home—overwhelming medical bills; a roof in ruins; wells that won’t pump water—people in Operation Round Up communities can reach out to the program for help.

“Everyone who applies for assistance feels their situation is unique and catastrophic, because it is catastrophic to them,” says Vicki Ross-Bell, administrative services manager with Mid-Carolina. The cooperative averages 30 to 40 requests for assistance each month.

“We want to enhance the quality of life in our communities,” Ross-Bell says. “If we can help when they’re in a bind, keep them from being evicted or foreclosed on, we can make a huge difference to them and their family.”

Each co-op determines how best to use Operation Round Up funds in its community. Most are supervised by a trust board that reviews requests, which can disburse funds directly to individuals who apply for assistance.

Other Round Up programs prefer to fund needs through a community’s established social service organizations.

“That reaches more people with one gift,” says Cindy Sarratt with Tri‑County Electric Cooperative’s Round Up program, which primarily funds local organizations that aid community members in need.

Santee Electric pairs its Round Up funds with State Housing Finance & Development Authority grants to complete health- and safety-related repairs—roofing, HVAC, plumbing, windows and doors, wheelchair ramps—for elderly and disabled residents in its service area.

Fairfield Electric Cooperative funds holiday dinners at Thanksgiving and Christmas for needy families in its service area. Co-op employees volunteer with another Round Up effort called Adopt an Elder, which provides care baskets filled with toiletries, stamps, cards, socks, gloves and other needed items to elderly and shut-in residents.

Mid-Carolina Electric expanded its program with a feature called Operation Round Up Plus, thanks to a suggestion from one of its members. Any MCEC member can choose to donate a few extra dollars per month to the Operation Round Up fund. The 360 members who have opted into the Plus program boost the fund by about $850 each month, Ross-Bell says.

In August, Broad River Electric Cooperative joined forces with community partners to donate more than 3,000 backpacks stuffed with school supplies to elementary-school students in Spartanburg, Union and Cherokee counties. Operation Round Up funds purchased the bags, and Broad River solicited donations of pencils, notebooks, paper and more from area churches and businesses. Its employees helped stuff the backpacks.

“All the money is our members’ money—it’s donated by them; it’s the members’ generosity,” says Josh Crotzer, member service coordinator for Broad River Electric. “I hope they recognize the impact that it’s having in the community.”

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Operation Round Up by the numbers

$6 - Average annual contribution by participating members

$33 million - Amount disbursed to date by S.C. programs

16 - Number of S.C. co-ops with Operation Round Up programs

300-plus - Estimated number of co-ops across the nation that have an Operation Round Up program

1989 - Year Palmetto Electric Cooperative launched the nation’s first Operation Round Up program